When Happily Ever After Fails
by Bureaucrat
Summary: Will and MacKenzie start to rekindle their relationship when Will shows his vulnerable side after being plagued by recurring nightmares of Mac's stabbing.


**Okay, the idea for this one was inspired by the Will/Mac prompts posted by lilacmermaid. When I realized I couldn't pick just one I attempted to narrow it down to some of my favourites. Three pages of prompts later I decided the hell with it, I am going to use these to frame a nice long Will/Mac get together (or re-get together depending on how you want to look at it) story. This is my first attempt at fanfiction thus all input is very greatly appreciated. It is also a great opportunity to do some reading on current events. **

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**When Happily Ever After Fails  
Prologue:**

Remember when the days were long  
And rolled beneath a deep blue sky  
Didn't have a care in the world  
With mommy and daddy standin' by  
But "happily ever after" fails  
And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales  
The lawyers dwell on small details  
Since daddy had to fly — Don Henley

"21—down: Between subtle shading and the absence of light lies the nuance of iqlusion" Charlie glanced up from the newspaper splayed across his desk, his thick-rimmed glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose as he did so. He caught them before they toppled into his lap. Will was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame.

Will blinked. "The fucking _New York Times_?"

"Mmmm…" Charlie agreed. "Nothing wrong with scoping out the competition. 21—down."

"Iqlusion isn't a word. How many letters?"

"Seven."

"And I'll assume you've tried _Kryptos_?"

Charlie cocked his head sideways, curling his lips against the corner of his mouth as he did so.

Will fixed him with a stare. "Sanborn than, why are you asking me questions you already know the answers to? "

"Why ask questions at all?" Charlie breathed, watching Will's chest puff up from the share ludicrousness of the statement. He could tell the younger man wasn't in the mood to engage him.

"To elicit desired information," Will returned dryly as he shuffled into the room.

"OK," Charlie agreed, absently tapping the paper on his desk. "What kind of information?"

Will huffed and folded his arms, the blue Oxford shirt he was wearing wrinkled as he did so. "The useful kind," he deadpanned.

"Useful to whom? Just because information is _useful_ doesn't make it honest. Hell, TMI manages this every week and the drabble they publish isn't useful _or_ honest yet the readers eat it up like a god damn steak dinner."

"I wasn't implying mutual exclusivity," Will's tone was defensive.

"Fair enough," Charlie shrugged and offered the man a crooked half-smile. He glanced back at the _Times_.

"Before _Kryptos_ the most famous monument in Langley was a slab of marble with the words '_And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free_' chiseled into the face of it.

Will scoffed. "Such a suitable motto for an agency that prides itself on conducting clandestine operations aimed at soliciting information from foreign governments, corporations, and individuals. People don't like the truth, Charlie—just the idea of it."

"Do they now? Is that why you've stopped hunting?"

"Ratings have never been better." Will shook his head, taking a sudden interest in the TV screens embedded into the wooden paneling on the other side of the room.

"Yes, you're an everyday Edwin Newman." That got a rise out of him. He craned his neck back toward Charlie.

"Oh, don't insult me, Newman was a newspaper man."

"Yeah, until NBC picked him up. My point being…" Charlie stared hard at Will and stopped mid-sentence, sensing he had hit a sore spot he relented. He drew a breath and switched gears.

"In 1988 James Sanborn was commissioned to erect a sculpture in courtyard adjoining the old CIA headquarters building to the new one. In essence they wanted a piece of public art that the public would never see. They named it _Kryptos_ for the Greek word…"

"_Hidden_. Yes, I'm aware of that," Will said quietly. "A meditation on the nature of secrecy and the elusiveness of truth."

"True," Charlie agreed. "Stark contrast to the old _'the truth shall make you free' _motto_."_

"Yes well, I can't say I've ever regarded the CIA as the utmost moral authority on truth-telling."

"All the more reason to keep that monstrosity out of plain sight." Charlie gestured for Will to sit down.

"865 characters of seeming gibberish punched out in half an inch thick copper in a courtyard that virtually no one has access to. 20 years go by and the nation's top spooks are still no closer to figuring out what it means. Now there's irony for you." Will exhaled and sunk into the leather chair in front of the desk, his arms strewn across his thighs.

"Rumour has it the solution lies sealed in a safe in the Director's office."

Will snorted and threw up his hands in mock contempt. "Yet another example of the sadistic nature of mankind."

Charlie gestured to his crossword. "There's nothing wrong with a good puzzle every now and again. You should try it sometime."

"I don't do crosswords."

"You know," Charlie straightened his glasses, pushing them back along his nose. "That actually surprises me about you. You're a god damn reporter for fuck sakes."

"I'm a news anchor." Will replied indignantly.

Charlie huffed. The phone on his desk rang, interrupting whatever he was going to say in mid-swallow.

"Hang on," Charlie gestured at him with his left hand.

Will could see the mottled ink stains on his fingertips as he gripped the plastic receiver. He watched the man for a moment, listing to him ease through the usual round of courtesies before something in his voice changed. It was subtle at first, a slight upswing in his tone that indicated heightened concern. Another god damn human interest story most likely. Charlie hated them and Will was inclined to agree, but if dedicating a five-minute segment to how Apple has revamped the fourth generation iPod Nano kept the ratings up than his hands were tied.

Will grit his teeth and stared back down at Charlie's desk. The paper had been folded back on itself with the gridded outline of the crossword facing up. If he squinted he could see the smudge where Charlie's thumb had grazed over the word 'creel' rendering it almost unrecognizable.

He frowned. Who the hell does the crossword in pen anyway?

"Yes, we managed to obtain CCTV footage of yesterday's Marriott hotel bombing through the AP. A damn bomb went off and you are surprised to see a shiite uprising in Islamabad? Wait do you mean— who the hell do you have out there?"

Will blinked and raised his head to peer back at Charlie. The man didn't make eye contact and Will could see he had turned a few shades paler.

"…well find out and get back to me." Charlie made a show of slamming the phone down a steady stream of profanity spewing from his tight lips as he did so.

"God damn morons. That was Roger Creston from CNN. Someone down in Atlanta gave his guys the go ahead to cover the shiite protests from the streets. It's a full blown riot over there and his crew is stuck in the thick of it."

Charlie's phone rang again before Will could respond. This time his voice was low and laced with a wary edge that Will was unfamiliar with.

"Jesus, No…" The receiver in Charlie's right hand shook and he pressed it hard against his cheek to try and steady it.

"Are you sure it was her? Who's the source for this?" Charlie asked weakly.

He intentionally averted his gaze, ignoring the question in Will's eyes.

"I'm going to ask you again, are you sure?"

"Are. You. Sure?" His voice sounded raspy and strained to Will's ears.

There was a long pause before Charlie spoke again. "You call back the _moment_ you get any new information. Do you understand me? I don't give a flying fuck about interagency competition when our own people are concerned."

He slugged the phone against the desk for a second time. Will watched him, suspicious.

Charlie closed his eyes and drew in a long shaky breath that made his chest rattle. He didn't want to look at Will for this, but he knew he had to. Slowly he raised his eyes to meet the younger man's stony gaze.

"MacKenzie's been working in Atlanta for CNN. She wanted the Arab Spring story, insisted on it."

"No." Will shook his head disbelieving. His elbows braced against the polished wood were the only thing keeping him from falling forward onto the tiled floor. Charlie was speaking to him, but the thudding of his own heartbeat smothered any attempt to recognize what he was saying.

"How could you?" He demanded distrustfully.

"She was the best EP on my staff. I wasn't going to let her founder because you two couldn't get along," Charlie snapped, but he couldn't maintain it and his voice cracked. "I sent her to Creston and Creston sent her to the Middle East…" he paused, almost chocking on his words.

"And now she's…god Will, she's dead."

_Dead_. He tried to wrap his mind around the word and ended up pressing his fingers so hard into his temples that they turned white.

Charlie felt sick, but he knew he had to finish. "She was stabbed while reporting on a rally in Jinnah Ground—the people started to riot…Creston doesn't know how many others were injured… outside communication is being blocked…I…god dammit, Will."

Will sat there, in the faded leather chair staring at Charlie, just staring— he didn't react. He was familiar with the concept of shock: how in times of severe stress the body systemically shut itself down, as a newsman he had seen it often enough, but it _never_ happened to him. Hell, he'd even stated that fact on several occasions, but the from the moment he observed Charlie Skinner damn near shatter in front of him as he explained that MacKenzie McHale had been stabbed to death while overseas Will McAvoy completely and utterly shut down.

Death was another concept he was used to. People died every hour, every minute, every second; reporting it was a daily occurrence for him, but Mac…he was as bewildered, as thoroughly disoriented as he had been in 5th grade when his father almost beat his mother to a bloody pulp for not having dinner prepared on time. He'd cracked a bottle across the man's face that night and spent the next 48 hours in hospital watching as his mother slipped into a coma. She'd lasted 10 days before being taken off life support with her physicians citing irreparable brain damage as the primary cause of death. His parents had been there one moment, and then violently, irretrievably gone the next; mom to her grave and daddy to a 6x8 prison cell. Now Mac was…he couldn't finish the thought, his mind blanked.

He barely flinched when Charlie nudged his elbow with something hard and heavy sounding as it slid across the desk in front of him.

"Drink it, Will." The older man urged as he tipped a bottle of his best Dalmore over the rim of the mug, filling it a little over half way. He produced a second coffee mug and repeated, illustrating the process with a long, slow sip.

Will raised his head, slowly, directing his gaze to the mug under his nose. He stared at it for a moment, forcing himself to focus on the 'News Night with Will McAvoy' logo emblazoned onto the face of the black ceramic. It was firm reminder of his newly honed 'not bothering anybody' routine which absolved his nightly guests of all accountability for their actions. Yup, that was him: Will McAvoy— the Jay Leno of breaking news.

MacKenzie would have hated what the show had become— what _he_ had become.

It was impossible to tell what had triggered it. Along with the desperation and grief that threatened to suffocate him, there was a red-hot rage nipping at the edges of his thoughts. It all boiled over in one swift instant, a watershed moment where every emotion he had ever felt for MacKenzie, for his dead mother, for the brother and two sisters that his father used to beat on flooded into his mind at once. His body responded in kind and the next thing that registered was the clinking sound that the mug made as the ceramic splintered into a thousand pieces against the wall behind Charlie's desk.

Will stared at the dent it left, exposing the gyprock underneath.

Charlie yelped and ran towards him.

"Stay the fuck away from me!" He roared, reacting more from the share burst of adrenaline coursing through his veins than from anything else. It didn't last long. He kicked a chair and toppled a stack of books resting on Charlie's side table before everything started to fizzle away and he felt a wave of sickness wash over him. Then the world started to grey and Charlie's voice was replaced by a deep buzzing sound that resonated through his skull as though it was going to swallow him up. It seemed to have a pulse of its own a distinct… beep…beep…beep…BEEP!

"What the…?" Will muttered, opening his eyes blearily. It was a long moment before he could regain enough control over his breathing to do something about the damn clock. His hand snagged the plastic cord, ripping it out of the wall in one fluid motion.

Silence. He sighed and rolled over slightly, groaning. His heart was still threatening to leap straight out of his chest and he barely suppressed the urge to sick-up all over his plush carpet.

Another 15 minutes passed before Will could garner the strength to haul himself out of bed and into his bathroom. He felt shaky and almost fell to his knees when his foot caught on the doorjamb. He braced his hip on the counter-top and hunched forward, hands flat against the smooth granite as he stared at himself in the mirror. His hair was mussed, his eyes red, and the grey t-shirt he was wearing clung awkwardly to his back; he could see the circular patterns the sweat stains made along his chest and armpits.

Will scowled at his reflection, rapping his fist once against the mirror before his fingers hooked around the handle of the top drawer adjacent to his toilet. He rooted for a moment, reaching for the small plastic pill bottle tipped on its side at the back of the drawer. The prescription was about three years old and two years expired. Weakly he shook two pills out of the bottle and tossed them to the back of his throat, swallowing them dry.

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**Hot off the press: **Steven Levy.(2009). Mission Impossible: The Code Even the CIA Can't Crack. _WIRED_.


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